What have we learnt from Gambhir's first series as India coach?

Ever since Gautam Gambhir’s name was discussed as the next head coach of the India men’s cricket team, there have been very strong assumptions about what his tenure might look like. 

Some predicted India becoming an evolved version of the early 2000s Australian team that was always 'in your face', ready to go to the extremes to win a game. Some thought that he’d find it very hard to avoid an ego clash with the behemoths in the Indian Men’s dressing room. And some, or rather a lot of them, made memes on how Jasprit Bumrah will be opening the batting with Rohit Sharma. 

Instead, what we got on Gambhir’s first assignment as a coach was a proper mixed bag. While India dominated the three-match T20I series, the Lankan spinners in ODIs pushed them on the back foot and won the series 2-0. On the other hand, no ego clashes or sullen faces were visible in the dressing room, as Gambhir was seen chatting with Virat Kohli on many occasions and even having a laugh. 

Alas, many who waited to hear what Gambhir would say after being the first coach to lose a bilateral series in Sri Lanka in the 21st century were disappointed. He was nowhere to be seen. Instead, skipper Rohit Sharma attended the press conference and stressed that batters should bat more bravely and formulate their individual plans for such conditions. 

The Indian team's decisions and strategies on this tour revealed some discernible patterns that told us more about Gambhir’s thought process as a coach. Let’s look at them. 

Gambhir loves players with all-round skills 

This is probably the most obvious inference from India's six games on the tour. Except for Shreyas Iyer, Yashasvi Jaiswal, and Kohli, almost every single batter who can bowl with a legal action bowled in the tour. Sri Lanka was an ideal place to test these part-time bowlers out, considering most of them — if not all of them — were spinners. 

Suryakumar Yadav and Rinku Singh snatching a tie from the jaws of defeat with the ball might still be one the most ridiculous moments of cricket this year. Shubman Gill and Rohit Sharma showed they can be trusted for a few overs in the middle phase of an ODI innings. 

However, the best thing to come out of this strategy of going after multi-skilled players is the rise of Riyan Parag, who looks like a solid prospect for white-ball formats with his all-round skills. 

In the only ODI that he played, he looked like a proper third spinner who can give you 10 overs in at least 7/10 days. He was drifting the ball in the air, and his control of line and length, combined with the help available for spinners on the pitch, made him an attacking bowler. He took three wickets (all proper batters) and was the best Indian bowler in the third ODI.

Indian cricket has long needed to develop and support the all-round skills of the players in its squad, and under Gambhir, the plan is finally being enacted with much gusto. Parag is a big positive outcome. 

However, he still has to nail down the batting order

The clarity visible in the strategy of making batters bowl was missing when deciding the batting order during the ODIs. 

A prominent reason behind this could be Gambhir’s insistence on the benefits of a left-hander in the top four of India’s batting order.  In the 2024 T20 World Cup, Axar Patel did that with substantial success. 

However, in a bilateral series against a lower-ranked opposition, where both Iyer and KL Rahul were making their comebacks on the side, fiddling with their batting positions created instability. The two are among India’s best spin batters, who can defend and attack the tweakers with professional precision. However, Rahul couldn’t even make it to the team in the third ODI. 

India played Washington Sundar, Shivam Dube, and Rishabh Pant at number four in the three ODIs, and none of them could score or stay at the crease enough to create a lasting impact. What was more perplexing was that Sundar wasn’t given a chance to bat at that position in the remaining two ODIs. 

This shows that Gambhir still hasn’t figured out how to implement his much-desired left-hand and right-hand batting combinations for the Indian ODI side. Is Yashasvi Jaiswal’s time finally coming? We’ll have to wait and see where Gambhir takes this. 

He is quick to try out the bench 

As soon as India won the first two T20Is, Gambhir and Suryakumar Yadav gave chances to every single player in the T20I squad who hadn’t played a game. At the end of the ODI series, which was probably the most spin-dominant series in recent memory, pacers Harshit Rana and Khaleel Ahmed were the ones not to get an opportunity. 

Parag played every T20I in the series, and despite the presence of Hardik Pandya, Dube was given enough chances to bowl and bat across the two series. 

Hence, it’s very apparent that Gambhir loves to try out the bench, and build options for the side as he progresses in his tenure. He has already reaped good benefits from following this strategy, as Parag, Dube, and Sundar have put in performances that give the Indian team a strong all-round core to choose from in white ball cricket if you also add Axar Patel, Pandya and Jadeja to it. 

This could very well be the era of Indian men’s cricket’s all-rounders, and Gambhir has ensured this by giving these players and others on the bench proper opportunities. 

Gambhir loves adding batting depth 

It’s a result of Gambhir playing so many all-rounders that India had proper batters until number eight in every game they played on the tour. In the last ODI, after India struggled in the first two against spin, he even played an extra batter as a cushion rather than bolstering the bowling, which allowed the opposition to score above-par scores on turning tracks. 

While it allows the batters above to bat with a lot of freedom, a feature of India’s batting since the days of Rahul Dravid, India can benefit a lot more from it because of the kind of players Gambhir has at his disposal. In Axar, Parag, and Pandya, he has four lower order batters who can play both the aggressive and the defensive game well. 

Meanwhile, Dube and Sundar are capable of scoring quick runs. Since three of these five lower-order batters are dynamic left-handed batters, they can also be promoted up the order to fiddle with the opposition’s bowling plans. 

Gambhir, in this one tour comprising six games, has decisively added his impressions on the blueprint of the Indian Men’s team. Success and failure came to him in equal measure this time. It would be interesting to see how he takes these developments forward. 

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